


The Rose and the Dare

by alejandrathemexican



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Halloween, Spooky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-07-25 06:18:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16191803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alejandrathemexican/pseuds/alejandrathemexican
Summary: Ruffnut dares Astrid to retrieve a rose from the abandoned churchyard deep in the forest. She finds unexpected help.





	1. The Dare

Astrid tightened her grip over the flashlight, scowling as she stumbled over a tree root.

Stupid Ruffnut. Stupid dare.  _Stupid stupid stupid._  She’d only done it because she hadn’t seen her friends in a while and had taken the time to fly back for the weekend.

It was 2 a.m. They were playing truth or dare, and after that terrifying moment of the bottle spinning, Ruffnut had dared her to go into the woods and get a flower from the huge rose bush next to the abandoned church deep in the forest.

 _‘Real original_ ,’ snarked Astrid, taking a short break to make sure she hadn’t gotten lost yet.

Hearing a crinkling sound from the dried leaves in the ground, Astrid swung her flashlight around, feeling a lot like a victim in a horror movie.

If she got murdered doing this stupid dare, By the Gods would she come back just to kill Ruffnut.

Her flashlight caught the face of a stranger. Grabbing a branch, she flung it to the tall figure, that eeked and groaned.

Astrid shoved the light of the flashlight onto the guy’s form, holding his forehead gingerly. “Who are you?!” she demanded, picking up another branch and threatening him with it.

“Gods! Stop, stop! I’m innocent.”

“What are you doing here?!”

“Will you stop shouting? I swear it’s not whatever it looks like-”

Astrid didn’t give him a chance to say anything else pinning him with the thick branch.

“Okay, okay okay, fine! I’ll— I’m just looking for my dog!”

“At 2 am? That’s a pretty serial killer thing to say.”

“Well, I’m not the only one, am I? Astrid-”

Astrid gasped, “how do you know my name?”

He grunted, the tip of the branch digging a bit on his chest, “of course I know you name; we used to be neighbours. I’m Hiccup Haddock, remember?”

She scowled, shoving the flashlight on his face and recognizing his annoyed look. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry. “You’re too different. Prove it.”

“Fine,” he snarked, “my dad’s Stoick, and my mum Valka. The scar on my chin I got it after I fell out of a tree when you dared me.”

Still squinting, Astrid eased up on the pressure. “I thought you were living with her?”

“I was. I got back last year, but you were off to college. Now, the question is: what are _you_  doing here this late?”

Helping him get up, Astrid stepped back, “I got dared by Ruff. She wants me to get a rose form the churchyard.”

Hiccup looked deep into the darkness, before closing his eyes, almost visibly listening for something.

Astrid observed him. He was taller, his shoulders wider, in a leather jacket, and his face had lost the baby fat, his chubby cheeks giving way to a sharp jawline.

He looked…  _good_.

He also looked pristine, only the bottom of his shoes muddied.

Astrid suddenly felt messy, with her sweatshirt having snagged on some branches. She wondered how he managed to stay so clean after coming this deep into the forest, and without a flashlight.

He turned to her, startling her out of her thoughts. “The forest is more dangerous the deeper you walk into it. I’ll get the rose for you; wait here.”

Before Astrid could protest, he was off between the branches.

To her surprise, she only had to wait five minutes before he was back, a rose clutched in his hand.

“How did you get there and back so fast?” she wondered as she took the rose.

He shrugged, his smile showing the gap in his teeth. “I’m a fast walker.”

“Well, thanks anyway,” she said, raising the rose to his line of view. “See you around?”

“I don’t know about that,” he said, and there was a strange melancholy in his green eyes. “I have to find my dog first.”

This rung strangely in her mind, but she let it pass her by. Hiccup had always been strange.

“Alright. Hope you find it, then!”

“Thanks, Astrid. Be safe.” And he was gone, walking into the shadows and disappearing.

Astrid got back to Ruffnut’s house well enough, walking through the back, sliding doors leading straight into the living room, where everyone except Ruffnut had already crashed in random places.

“There you are!” said Ruffnut, “where have you  _been_?”

Astrid shook off the rain from her sweatshirt, setting the rose on the coffee table. “You told me to get the rose, remember?”

“Astrid, it’s almost four in the morning.”

She frowned; that didn’t seem right. “Well, chill, I’m here now.”

Ruffnut muttered a ‘whatever. Last time I worry about you.’

Grabbing some chips from the coffee table, she pushed Snot’s legs from the couch, so she could sit. “Hey, did you know Hiccup Haddock was back?”

Ruffnut, rose from the living room floor, eyeing Astrid carefully. “Yeah?”

Astrid threw her a couple of chips, “why didn’t you tell me? He Neville-Longbottomed.”

“Why are you talking about him all of a sudden?”

Astrid frowned, annoyed that Ruffnut wasn’t taking her bait to gossip like she usually did. “I don’t know, I saw him recently. Just wondering.”

“When did you see him?” said Ruffnut, her skin paling, and fumbling through her phone.

“I… why does that even matter?”

“When did you see him?”

“Gods, never mind, Ruff, it’s not a big deal.”

Ruffnut tossed her her phone. “Read.”

It was the digital version of the local newspaper. Before reading the outline, the first thing that called her attention was the picture of Hiccup on it. He looked as she’d seen him; taller, wider, older.

Then she read the title of the article:

> **Son of the Mayor: First Anniversary since.**
> 
> _It’s now the first anniversary of the disappearance of Hiccup Haddock, son of Mayor Stoick. Tonight, he holds a candle vigil, like he did the day of, in hopes that his son will return. However, the police department is not as optimistic:_
> 
> _“We are no longer expecting him back alive. We haven’t been for a long time. The forest is not that big; if he had survived he would have made it out somehow. Our only regret is not having found the body as of yet. Tomorrow we’ll be sending in a team to comb through again some of the more difficult areas of Raven’s Point. Hopefully the rain will have uncovered something, if he was indeed buried.”_

She could read no more. Eyes brimming with tears, she stood up, her heart overwhelming her and her mind reeling.

On the coffee table, the red rose waited, poignant.


	2. The Rose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FREND! I originally wrote this for you, but thank you also for the prompt you gave me that made me continue it! One more, final chapter coming!

 Her parents must surely be worried, but she couldn’t fathom stopping now.

It was like her fingertips could almost touch it.

Her tongue almost taste it.

The answer to the mystery of Hiccup Haddock’s disappearance.

And she’d been working so hard to find it, too.

After the initial fright, Astrid had quickly fallen into denial, then anger at Ruffnut when she’d told her not to get involved:

“Nana Nutface was nuts,” Ruffnut had said, unable to quiet the admiration in her tone, “and she knew her ghouls and things. You said it was weird, Astrid; he looked completely intact and healthy. Does that look like someone one year on the run to you? Don’t you think it’s weird today’s when you saw him, in the anniversary?”

She’d argued with Ruffnut until everyone was awake and dragged them into the forest in the morning, to find the post she’d met Hiccup, and the cemetery.

Except the cemetery was gone.

“Maybe it was demolished it,” said Tuffnut, shrugging.

“This place is giving me the creeps,” had said Fishlegs, almost in a whimper.

“Yeah, can we go?” had said Snotlout, “I’m not scared, just bored,” he’d said, even though he was jumpy.

Ruffnut had shared an intent look with Astrid, as if underlining her advice to her.

‘Do not get involved.’

Then, of course Astrid hadn’t followed her advice, and gone directly to the Mayor’s house under the guise of wanting to write an article about her old childhood friend Hiccup.

Stoick had let her in, offered her a seat in his dinner table and offered tea that she’d politely declined.

“Well,” had started Stoick, clearing his throat, “you know what he was like. Always wandering off. Getting himself in the unluckiest of situations. The day when he… The day I last saw him, he went to the forest, to get a rose. You know it’s the only place they grow in Berk.”

Astrid had nodded.

“He came back with the rose. It was big and-and gorgeous. Much like the one you have, there.”

It was like a cold hand had gripped Astrid’s heart and squeezed. She hadn’t realized she’d brought the rose with her, but there it was, sitting on the table.

“He took Toothless, his dog, and came back without him,” continued Stoick. His hands looked strange curling around a mug, like a bear hugging a bottle of champagne, “he said something about the dog running off and going back to find him, and never returned,” his voice trembled, and Astrid was afraid he’d start crying, but he got a hold of himself. “He hasn’t returned.”

“I wish he’d never gone,” he frowned, his eyes glassy, “but he wanted to impress a girl.” His frown deepened, and his voice was watery.

“I wish he’d never gone,” he whispered. Then he’d taken notice of Astrid’s face. “I’m sorry. It’s always rougher around these days for me. Aren’t you going to write anything down?”

After excusing her lack of writing materials on her perfect memory, Astrid had made her thank you’s and well-wishes, and left. Mind reeling, and hand clutched around the rose.

She’d gone into the forest again, but no apparition of Hiccup.

No rose cemetery.

And her bus back to school would be soon, so she went back to university, the rose tucked carefully into her backpack, before being placed in her nightstand.

That’s when the nightmares started.

She could never remember much from them, but there were flashes.

Flashes of pain, heartbreak.

She’d wake up and smell pine. She’d walk by the library and hear someone walking next to her when she was actually alone.

And the thoughts would never stop. Something kept drawing her back to Hiccup Haddock’s disappearance. Everything reminded her of him.

It was like there was little left inside her but the desire to solve the enigma of his life. How he’d died.

Astrid started to remember little things, like the time she was leaving soccer practice back in Secondary, and she’d seen Hiccup sitting outside in the summer sun.

He’d been small, back then. Limbs skinny and skin pale under his freckles, and his auburn hair was limp and lifeless, like his dejected sigh.

It had also been the last time she’d seen him alive.

That’s the thing about hearing someone you barely knew died.

It only made them more alive in your mind.

Now, she wanted to find significance in every memory of him, like the times he’d made it late to class and stood their teacher’s disappointed rant about how he wasted that brain of his with his irresponsibility.

Like the time he’d gotten a higher grade in Maths than hers and he’d smiled brilliantly until he’d caught sight of her face and his smile had turned sheepishly apologetic. Astrid had thought at the time that he had meant to say, ‘I’m sorry I’m better than you,’ and it had made her blood boil.

Like the time she had realized just right before their final French test that her pencil’s mine had shattered, and he’d reached to place a new pencil on her desk without her prompting.

She had never gotten to thank him.

And they had grown apart by then.

And then she had gone on with her life, lost contact with her friends.

And then she had cancelled her first trip back home because her boyfriend had invited her over the break to his family’s.

And then Hiccup had died.

And she hadn’t known.

Sometimes, when her mind strayed from her textbooks, she wondered over and over those memories.

Hiccup Haddock plagued her.

He haunted her.

It was getting hard trying to talk to people about it. They looked at her like those flat earther freaks and tinfoil hat wearing aficionados.

Didn’t want to hear about a story that was probably fake.

Those who did were a bit too into it.

‘It’s not like that,’ Astrid wanted to say.

She wondered herself is she was obsessed with the mystery, or if she was regretful. She even asked herself if she wasn’t making it all up at times.

But then she’d have a nightmare, and she’d wake up. Look at the rose in her nightstand.

Still blood red.

Still alive.

Then Astrid thought of checking the date in her phone; May.

That rose had no business being that alive.

It was then June, and the rose had kept the lushness in its petals, while the nightmares had gotten worse.

She woke up sweating bullets and her heart cursed when her lips couldn’t.

It took her a moment to remember where she was, and why she was crying.

The truth is that she was simply heartbroken.

She got up, traipsing around until she found her lamp’s light switch, illuminating her dorm room.

Gasping when her toe hit her mini fridge, she stumbled the last steps before she reached her sink.

She gulped down one, two glasses of water, and it was only then that she could think clearly again.

Her feet hardly made any noise on the carpet as she walked across and sat on her bed, eyes fixated on the full moon outside.

It was always the same nightmare.

The same party over and over, again, and again.

Ruffnut would dare her, and she would go into the forest, where she’d meet Hiccup.

It was a strange feeling, like her body moving without her consent, walking through the woods, hands touching the bark, but she unable to feel anything.

Night would turn to day, until she reached the old cemetery and the ruins of the church.

Hiccup would stand there, his hand on the rubble; luscious rose bushes blooming around him, their red petals velvet-like.

He would notice her, and her heartbeat would speed in terror, like a mouse running from a cat, begging not be eaten.

Hiccup would turn to look at her, and tears would well-up in her eyes.

His lips would move, saying words she couldn’t decipher. And then she’d realize that everything was silent around her.

No breeze shifting the tree branches.

No birds chirping.

Sound was dead.

Hiccup’s eyes would catch something behind her, and they would widen.

He’d shout something she couldn’t hear as he rushed to her.

She set her glass down on their little kitchenette.

Astrid had always prided herself on being fearless, but she’d never been more scared.


	3. The Forest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! the third and final installment.  
> I HIGHLY suggest that you listen to "Darcy's letter" by Dario Marianelli for Pride and Prejudice 2005 while you read. You can start it when Astrid is talking to her mom.

October saw her taking a sort of leave of absence and returning to Berk from her university in Hysteria. The nightmares had gone on, making her almost fail her history class midterm for lack of concentration.

More questioning from skeptical and reluctant friends had led her to Camicazi’s address.

Astrid remembered her well, if only because she was the captain of the volleyball team in High School and was fierce in a way Astrid could grudgingly respect.

Camicazi had also been Hiccup’s best friend after Astrid and he had grown apart, according to the rest of her friends.

She almost hesitated, but she saw the blinds in Camicazi’s house windows move when she looked so she figured she was already here, and Camicazi most likely already knew she was there.

Her knuckles were cold, and rapping against the red door hurt, so Astrid was a little annoyed that she had to do it three times to get Camicazi to open the door.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said, before shutting the door on her face.

Astrid frowned, before thumping her fist at the door again.

“What?” complained the girl, blonde hair wild like it’d always been, poking her head out the door and squinting her eyes.

“Five minutes?”

Camicazi grumbled something, before letting her in.

“What is this about?” said Camicazi, guiding her to the living room.

“I just… you were friends with Hiccup,” she said, sitting cautiously.

Camicazi had her feet up in the armchair, studying her guardedly. “And?”

Astrid explained through Cami’s disbelieving snorts that she was trying to solve his disappearance and that she had gone to the police, but they didn’t have a lot of information they could share since it was an open case, and how then she had gone to Mayor Stoick-

“You went to Hiccup’s dad?!” she growled, “gods, will anyone leave that poor man alone?” she ranted, “all you sensationalist pricks taking advantage of a family’s tragedy can rot in hel for all I know. What’s your angle? That you were his crush? What, do you need to know for an essay? I mean-”

“STOP! No. No,” seethed Astrid. “I would never do that I just,” she paused biting her lip, using the silence Camicazi’s surprise had given her to tell her of her nightmares.

“I just need to know anything you can tell me,” she begged, “anything you can tell me that can help me figure out what happened to him. I can’t sleep, I can’t concentrate… Please...”

Camicazi’s eyes were glassier as she spoke but didn’t fail to glare at her. “ _Fine._ You want to know? Hiccup went to get a rose because he wanted to impress this _stupid_ girl he had a crush on, because he heard from Fishlegs she was coming home from her University in Hysteria. Do you want to _know_ what happened to him? He went to get a rose to impress _you_ , and he probably got _murdered_ for it.” She had started crying, “now get the _fuck_ out of my house.”

Astrid staggered out of the house at Camicazi’s violent urging.

Hiccup had had a crush on her?

He had gone to get that rose for her?

And then he’d disappeared.

She had the nightmare again that night, Hiccup shouting a warning rushing towards her, and she woke up screaming.

She felt sick for the next two days, and she was forced to call her university.

Nightmares, and screaming.

Walking to the clearing and the churchyard.

Finding nothing.

Feeling sick, disgusted.

Wracked by guilt and fear.

The rose hadn’t died yet.

Her mother had called her university.

It was almost November.

Doctors had come and gone.

Hiccup had gone to get that rose for her.

She walked downstairs.

Her father had already gone to work, and her mother was making some toast that she nibbled on as her mother talked to her about her plans for the day while acting like she wasn’t worried about Astrid.

“-have to see Molding today, I’m helping her and her mother finally go through her dad’s things.” Ingrid shook her head despairingly, checking to see Astrid was still listening. “By the Gods, I’m sorry they’re dealing with all these issues, but I’m not sorry that terrible old man is dead. Remember I told you about it, darling?”

Astrid made a noise of agreement.

“And by the way, missy, you should stop walking to the woods. That’s how old Mildew died, you know? Some wild dog bit him in the leg and it got infected. Molding found him when she went to check on him like she did every month.” She paused again to check on Astrid. “I can’t say I regret his painful death,” Ingrid admitted, “he truly had a horrible soul.”

Finishing her toast, Astrid washed her dishes.

“Please, Astrid. Stop walking to the woods alone.”

Astrid nodded.

She waited until her mom had gone.

She walked to the woods

She found nothing.

That night, she had the nightmare again.

Unlike the previous ones, it was nighttime as she walked.

The silence was deafening, but yowling and barking in the distance broke through, making her run and suddenly there was Hiccup, mud in his clothes, and sick-looking.

“Don’t,” he begged. “Don’t see.”

Shocked that she could hear him, she didn’t know if she should keep going. “Why? What are you afraid of?”

The world shifted under her feet as she reached the clearing, and now she was on the opposite side, and Hiccup was shouting a loud, ringing, ‘HEY!’.

He ran through her, but there was no impact, and the shock lasted only a second before she was running after him.

He couldn’t hear her yelling anymore.

Dirtied with mud, he was stumbling through the woods, crashing into branches and calling ‘TOOTHLESS!’

Astrid rushed after him, and what she found was him finding a cabin, and his dog, big and black, yowling in pain, barking desperately and rushing to bite the old man, who held an axe in his hand, screeching about intruders and thieves.

“TOOTHLESS!” shouted Hiccup as the axe went down on the dog and there was a terrible, final whimper.

“NO!” roared Hiccup, advancing, whether to get to the dog or the old man she wasn’t sure, but Mildew made the choice for him, lifting the axe.

Hiccup cried out as the metal whistled on its way down.

She cried his name as she woke up, the duvet weighing too heavy over her, like a rainforest snake, crushing her.

Heartbeat wild in her throat, she’d forgotten how to breathe until she was taking in the cold air coming from her window, the moon shining through the clouds, filtering through the raindrops to reach her.

Something was calling her there.

“I love you!” she wanted to shout, when she didn’t, no matter how much she wanted to.

She wanted to call Hiccup, ask him so many things.

She wanted to go back in time and-

And then she remembered.

The forest.

The churchyard.

That old sick man, and his axe.

Attacking a boy and his dog for trespassing.

Pausing only for shoes and a hoodie, she was in the icy rain before she could think too much about it.

She skidded in the rain, to find her balance, sneakers slapping the puddles as she turned on corners, her steps splashing as she cut through alleyways.

The honk of a car, and a man’s complaint, but she was running through the streets of berk until asphalt turned to dirt and fear turned to desperation and then dread, and suddenly, before she realized it she was in the woods.

Branches snapped against her bullet-like body, shot and the gun still smoking.

“Don’t leave!” she wanted to plead, but he was already gone.

He had been gone before she knew it. Before she knew she wanted a chance to…

Hiccup had been lost.

All she could do now was find him.

And she was there, in the churchyard, where he had warned her not to come.

His name tore from her throat like a frantic prayer right before disaster hits.

You can see what’s coming, but you can’t shield yourself from it.

“Hiccup!” she cried again, clothes wet and body shivering as the wind picked up around her in a whisper.

Trying to remember her dream was complicated; her brain was already so full, she was afraid if someone asked her name now, she wouldn’t be able to answer.

Beyond the churchyard; beyond the rose bushes, Astrid could see a path.

“Let me find you,” she thought rather than said, sobbing before she realized she had been crying.

The foliage was thick enough that the rain didn’t touch her as she walked the path, and soon enough, she found it.

Mildew’s cabin, which had been abandoned since his body had been found by his granddaughter, had the damage of six month’s neglect in the rainy Berk.

The echo from a dog’s whimpering and a terrified sob was still ringing through her ears.

“HICCUP!” she called, and jolted, screaming, when the side shed’s doors busted open, the wind around her howling, and Astrid wasn’t sure whether to run or to enter it.

The wind settled, her heart knocking inside her like a cathedral’s bell.

Impossible to ignore.

Entering the shed before she could regret it, Astrid’s gaze ignored the bear traps and focused on what she knew she needed now.

A shovel.

Eyes roaming as she turned, desperately trying to find a clue. Any clue that would tell her where to dig.

She caught sight of the rose bushes lining Mildew’s property and her stomach lurched, her heart growing heavy in her chest and she didn’t know whether the next thing to come out of her would be vomit or a sob.

One of the bushes had luscious, blood-red roses.

She remembered something she had found when she was researching roses in the hopes of figuring out her never-dying rose.

Something about organic matter making roses bloom better.

When had she stopped feeling her knees?

The shovel sunk into the moist dirt, and she was kneeling before the rose bush.

The only sound was the shovel hitting dirt and rock and the whistle of it as she threw the dirt behind her, her strength leaving her second by second until black overwhelmed her and her name was called in a loving whisper.

When she woke up, the first thing she saw was pristine white before her, and the first thing she felt was a hazy warmth.

Idly, she wondered if she had died, until her eyes adjusted to the brightness, and, blinking, she focused on the lump next to her.

“Mom?” she croaked, and as her mother started to stir, Astrid started to take in her surroundings.

She was in a hospital, that much was sure.

Wracking her brain for a moment, she could finally recollect her memories.

She had been digging.

Digging and digging and then her shovel had hit something unyielding.

Had she dreamed it all?

“Astrid,” said Ingrid, her voice rough, and worry lines scrunched on her forehead.

Astrid gathered her energy into a smile. “What happened?”

Ingrid cried out, throwing her arms around Astrid. “Oh, my baby! Oh, I was so worried!” she wept, fingers digging urgently in Astrid’s pained skin as she checked Astrid over.

“What happened?”

“Oh, I don’t know what you were thinking.  What were you thinking, going to the woods like that?” blubbered Ingrid, half scolding, half terrified. “Please don’t scare me like that again!”

Astrid held her weeping mother and reassured her as much as she could even with her mind far away.

She didn’t dare ask, at least until it was Ruffnut visiting her some days later, about what had actually happened.

“So…” started Ruffnut, her head poking into her room, “did you see Hiccup’s ghost again?”

Astrid let out a breath of relief. “I was starting to think I had dreamed it all,” she said as Ruffnut dragged her feet and sat in the chair next to her.

Ruffnut listened attentively after being scolded twice not to interrupt as Astrid told her everything with detail.

“Shit,” she said first when Astrid was finished. “Did you tell all this to the cops?”

Astrid shook her head. She winced at the memory of the police officers grilling her on why she was even there in the first place and how she had come to learn about everything.

She had told them the case was intriguing, so she researched and followed a theory, and found Hiccup and his dog, Toothless, buried in Mildew’s cabin.

She’d said nothing about the rose.

“Fuck,” said Ruffnut. “Well, my Nana’s gonna want to hear about this.”

Astrid snorted.

They were quiet, Astrid listening to the ticking of the clock her mother had brought her.

Ruffnut was kicking the bed, pulling on her braids as she thought.

“What’s next?” said Astrid, asking herself but hoping Ruff would know the answer.

Her friend shrugged. “I heard Stoick is having an open funeral.”

“What? When?”

“Friday.”

Astrid hummed.

By Friday, she had been discharged.

By noon that day, she was standing with her mother’s unnecessary help in Berk’s cemetery, where a closed coffin was being lowered into the ground.

Berk had come together to say goodbye to Stoick’s son.

The man was weeping silently, as he put his only child into the ground. Finally resting in a deserving field.

Next to Stoick, Hiccup’s friends were patting the man in the back, staring at the disappearing coffin, tears streaming down their cheeks.

Camicazi caught her eye, giving her a solemn nod that Astrid returned.

Hiccup’s other friend, a tall man with a strong, tattooed chin and black hair gave her a curious look that she tried to ignore.

It was bittersweet.

She bet Stoick had been as desperate to not know his son was gone as he was to get answers.

One couldn’t be fulfilled without the other.

Her mother tried to get her to come back to the car when the crowd started leaving, but Astrid sent her ahead of herself.

What she was waiting for she didn’t know, but she was hoping it would ease the emptiness inside her.

She wouldn’t approach Hiccup’s friends, or the Mayor himself, but she was despairing for a connection to him.

Something to comfort her.

Something to tell her it was okay to not feel the pain that had been festering and cultivated for so long inside her.

Something to tell her it would be okay.

That he was at peace.

Mayor Stoick said some things so quietly even she, who was not too far, couldn’t make out the words, but she could see his love in the careful way he picked up a fistful of dirt and let it rain down the gap in the earth where his only son and his dog would rest.

“Thank you,” he said to her on his way out. “Thank you,” he said again, recognizing her as the one who found the answer he’d been afraid of, placing a tentative, heavy hand over her shoulder with the loneliness of a man who had lost his family in the space of half a decade.

She nodded, chin forward and stoic, trying cry and failing at it. The bouquet she had been holding in her hands crinkled.

As she approached the place that had been dug out and she let her bouquet of red roses fall as gently as she could, she felt powerless.

“I love you!” she wanted to shout, when she didn’t, no matter how much she wanted to.

“Don’t leave!” she wanted to plead, but he was already gone.

He had been gone before she knew it. Before she knew she wanted a chance to know him.

Hiccup Haddock was truly gone, and everyone would have to leave without him.

Even those who felt the loss more than she ever knew she could.

She was walking into the woods again, the birds chirping around her, and the sun filtering through the foliage seeping warmth into her skin like it was June until she found a clearing.

Looking around, Astrid recognized it as the clearing where she’d seen Hiccup Haddock for the first time. The path she had come from was not ominous like it’d been then.

She was not scared.

The barking was melodious, and a joyful laugh made her turn to face the clearing again, to find none other than Hiccup, sitting on the grass, a big, black, furry dog rubbing its face on Hiccup’s chest and licking his face.

For so long she had wanted to talk to him when she saw him, she didn’t know what to say.

Thankfully, he noticed her first.

“A-Astrid!” he stammered, eyebrows high, but he laughed when his dog wouldn’t let him up.

Instead, she approached, sitting in front of him, her knees safely under her chin.

“Hey,” he said tenderly. “Oh! Toothless, this is Astrid,” he said to the dog like one would another person. “Astrid, this is Toothless,” he said to her.

The dog approached, sniffing, and Astrid offered her shaky hand before the dog pushed his head.

As soon as he had gotten near her, he was back to his human, rubbing his body on Hiccup’s torso much like her aunt Hilde’s affectionate cat.

“I’m sorry,” he almost whispered, “for all you went through.”

She shook her head. Biting her lip, she tried to work through something before asking.

“Why me?”

Hiccup seemed troubled as he hummed.

“I didn’t mean to,” he said, “you just… you were the first one to listen.”

Blinking, a flash of Hiccup’s bewilderment when he’d seen her.

“Why didn’t you tell me everything?”

But he was already shaking his head. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.” He paused, discomfort in his grimace, “things here work differently, I guess,” he smiled, “but I do remember, you were the only one who saw me. I was lost for a long time.”

Her lip stung from being bit. “I never saw you. I didn’t know you.”

“But you did,” he laughed, petting his dog- Toothless- as it settled against him. “You were the first one, don’t you remember? Before I met Cami, and Eret, you were the only one who saw me.”

But she did remember now.

She did remember.

He was sitting outside, the sun burning his hair copper, the last time she’d seen him.

She was waiting for her mom to come to get her.

“I heard you’re moving.” She’d said when she’d gotten bored. “I think you’ll do well. With your mother, I mean,” she stammered. People usually talked to her first. “I think you’ll be fine.”

His freckly skinny-self had gaped at her, shocked that she’d ever graced him with her words.

Astrid had felt guilty. “Sorry about… everything.” For the not-deserved glares, the weird competitive streak…

“Uh… thanks.”

She’d shrugged. Her mom was waiting in their van. “Goodbye, Hiccup.”

He was looking at her now, in the clearing. Sadness of the gentlest kind in his eyes as she wiped her tears.

Standing up, he offered his hand to help her up, his dog running around them, barking with glee.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Why was she, the living person, crying more than the dead one? “you died so young,” she tried to explain. “I wish…”

He smiled sadly at her, “I know now, that you know I had a terrible crush on you, right?”

Astrid nodded, sniffing.

“And you know why I came here to get that rose in the first place, right?”

“I wish you hadn’t. I wish I could have…” could have what? Everything. Nothing. She hardly knew.

“There was nothing you could have done, Astrid. You know that, right?”

She didn’t speak for fear of sobbing.

His hand spread and on his palm a rose fluttered into existence.

He grinned, and his smile was so gleeful, it made her heart stutter.

Hiccup offered the rose to her.

Fresh, silent tears streaked down her cheeks, as she stretched her hand and took it, and it felt so real, she wondered if she hadn’t died yet.

His smile was brilliant. “Thank you; for everything you did for me. For us,” he added, gesturing at Toothless.

The dog barked as if agreeing.

She couldn’t help but reflect his contagious smile. She looked around the clearing, before remembering Mayor Stoick’s giant fingers, curling gently around the dirt. “What should I tell your dad?”

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. He looked at her longingly. “We’ll be meeting again, someday, right?”

She smiled at him again. “I guess.”

“If anything, you should look forward. You have a long life ahead of you.”

“I do?”

He hummed. “Oh!” he said, cocking his head like he was listening to something.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said, grinning again. “I’m happy for you.”

She clutched the rose against her. “Happy for me? Why?”

He winked. “You'll see.”

When she woke up, the rose in her bedside table had vanished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I KNOW OKAY I HAVE BEEN CRYING AT STARBUCKS FOR THE PAST 5 HOURS.  
> Now, where this story came from:  
> When I was in university there was this annoying guy. He was super annoying, never took anything seriously. He said something jokingly, and I lashed out and said something like he was wasting everyone's time.  
> I regretted it instantly, but I was too proud to say sorry.  
> I didn't talk to him again.  
> Months later, he died in a car accident.  
> R.I.P. Jorge. I'm sorry.


End file.
